Braces from Ramona Petzelberger and Shania Hayles fired Aston Villa past their bottom of the table rivals and catapulted the Villains up into ninth place.
This midweek WSL matchup pitted the two bottom sides in the league against one another, with Aston Villa looking to take advantage of the first of their two games in hand to improve their league position.
Conversely, after Bristol City managed only their second point of the season over the weekend in a draw with Reading, the Robins were desperate to finally secure their first win of the season.
Villa started the brighter of the two sides, pressuring Bristol into defensive mistakes but were unable to capitalise on them.
Bristol elected to start the game trying to play star striker Ebony Salmon in behind the Villains defence but keeper Lisa Weiss was able to run out and gather the ball repeatedly.
After beginning the game with plenty of bodies back in defence, a familiar sight for a Bristol City game, the league’s bottom side began to grow into the game.
Unfortunately for the Robins, when they got the ball to Salmon, there never seemed to be much support or passing options for her and Villa were always aware of where she was on the pitch, keeping two defenders marking her at all times.
The best chance of the half fell to Bristol just after the half-hour mark, with Salmon skipping past two Villa defenders and looking like she was clear through on goal but Natalie Haigh was able to recover and make the last-ditch tackle.
The tackle would draw shouts for a penalty from the hosts but the claims were waved away by referee Amy Fearn.
Aston Villa would break the deadlock just before halftime as Ramona Petzelberger would slide in and bundle the ball into the net from close range after a low cross from Emma Follis that got past Bristol keeper Sophie Baggaley.
Bristol City would adjust coming out of the break, making two changes early into the half.
This decision would almost pay dividends immediately as substitute Abi Harrison would turn past her defender and roll the ball to Charlie Wellings, who just had her effort cleared off the line by Asmita Ale.
For any Robins fans who fancied their team’s chances of finding the net next, those hopes were swiftly dashed as Emma Follis would get her second assist of the day, chipping a ball through to Shania Hayles who held off her defender and finished from a tight angle to give the Villains a 2-0 lead.
Villa would not let up from that point and with just over twenty minutes left in the game, Hayles would find herself through again and would lay the ball off to Petzelberger for her second of the day and Villa’s third.
It seemed as if the goal before halftime deflated Bristol City’s defence as with seventy-five minutes played, Hayles would strike from just inside the penalty area and would find the bottom right corner to make the score a resounding 4-0 to Villa, causing Robins keeper Baggaley to punch the ground in frustration.
Villa would be forced to take Petzelberger off due to injury and the goals would leave with her as the game would end with a 4-0 win for Villa.
The result leaves Bristol still searching for their first win of the season after eight games. Bristol also has the unfavourable distinction of having scored the least goals in the WSL (5) and conceded the most (35).
It seems that Bristol’s biggest problem this season has been their overreliance on their two best players, Ebony Salmon and Sophie Baggaley. Despite the hosts’ league position, the two are considered among the best in the WSL at their positions but were repeatedly left without any support in this game.
Salmon was left running into multiple defenders with no clear passing options and the Bristol defence has not provided Baggaley with sufficient protection so far this season.
With a heavy loss to one of the their closest rivals at the bottom of the table, it will beg the question of whether or not drastic changes need to be made in order to salvage the season and avoid relegation.
A ray of hope for Robins fans is that they may not finish the week at the bottom of the table as over the weekend, the bottom four teams in the WSL all play each other as newly ninth-placed Aston Villa travel to tenth-placed Tottenham and twelfth-placed Bristol City host eleventh-placed West Ham.
The Inbound Observer 